


day by day

by easystreets



Series: same kind of sick [2]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: And Big Big Plans For The Future <3, Cuddling & Snuggling, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Murder, Paint Thinners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27115202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easystreets/pseuds/easystreets
Summary: Bad things shouldn't happen to good people. Dennis avenges Charlie.Or: Dennis kills Uncle Jack.
Relationships: Charlie Kelly/Dennis Reynolds
Series: same kind of sick [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979168
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	day by day

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy! This is a continuation of a previous fic, "inside out and upside down", but you do not have to have read it in order to read this fic!
> 
> Trigger warning for canon-typical Uncle Jack and Klinsky mentions and a lil bit of murder. Also inhalant abuse because it's Charlie and Dennis-- what more do you expect?
> 
> And if you liked this fic/the entire concept of Dennis killing Uncle Jack for Charlie, you'll LOVE   
> [I'm Holding My Breath With A Baseball Bat](archiveofourown.org/works/27163798) ! It's by ryguy who is an amazing Charden author and so so talented. It's great and you so should check it out.

Charlie wakes up and Dennis is gone.

Which is fine, it’s not like he _wanted_ Dennis to stay. It’s not like he expected him to. There’s a smiley face and a cheap approximation of a car drawn in the dust on the mirror, and for some strange reason Dennis left him his credit cards in his leather wallet, all eight of them, along with a metric shitton of cash, so Charlie figures they’re good. That Dennis isn’t mad about the paint, or about having to walk Charlie home, or Uncle Jack.

Shit. That’s a whole other thing. Charlie does what he knows best and uses one of the hundred dollar bills Dennis left in his wallet to buy paint thinner and model glue at the Home Hardware on his walk to work.

“Where the hell is he?” Dee says when Charlie walks in, pulls a cigarette out of her mouth and tries to act all casual even though he can tell she’s dying to know.

“I don’t know,” Charlie says, all numb, and it’s true. Maybe Dennis fucked off to North Dakota again, left them all with a gaping hole, like some sort of screwed up puzzle where the pieces didn’t fit right. Maybe he’s in New York, doing blow with strippers and laughing at Charlie, telling the call girls about his idiot friend. Or maybe he really is murdering Uncle Jack. “D’you wanna get high in the back office with me?”

“No, Charlie,” she says, all indignant. “I do not want to get _high_ in the back office with you. It’s ten in the morning, for Christ’s sake.”

“Yeah, buddy,” Mac is flicking through channels on the TV. Charlie wonders if Dennis’ll be on there. “You’ve been goin’ off the rails lately. Frank even slept at Dee’s last night because he was worried you’d freak on him.”

Well. Charlie frowns. Yeah, he has nightmares sometimes, but they’re no big deal. And he didn’t have one last night, so it’s not like he has them all the time. (They noticeably stop whenever he shares a bed with Dennis. It’s no big deal. It’s whatever.) “Whatever man, like I’m gonna freak on Frank.”

He gets high. Higher than he usually would, until the back of his throat gets sore from all the chemicals and the world’s spinning and so he puts his head against the air vent in the back office and his back to the wall and face to the door (always look at the door always make sure you can find a way out because if you can’t find any light any way out then he’ll get you). So high that his chest skips a few beats, that he has to lie on the floor and breathe and remind himself that he isn’t a kid anymore, that in a few hours it’ll all be over, that Dennis has got his back.

* * *

Blood everywhere. Fuck. He thought this through, he thought this through, he knows what to do. Scrambling. The phone ringing, Jesus Christ, please shut up please shut up _shut up_. A bunch of pens on the desk; a bottle of milky hand sanitizer and a bunch of file folders and Xerox copies. Family photos: Jack and Bonnie as children. Bonnie in high school. Charlie. Charlie. Every yearbook photo of Charlie, his eyes progressively darker, the bags in his eyes protruding with the advance of time, with Uncle Jack’s hands crawling further down his back, haunting his body.

Dennis nearly throws up in the recycling bin. But then it’s over-- he’s dead, no pulse, sanguine and twitching on the brand-new carpet-- and it’s done and he’s out the back window and on the fucking New York subway and he’s throwing out the extra rope into a sewer drain and it’s over, done now, he can’t go back. He hopes it’s fucking worth it.

* * *

Dennis doesn’t come back until nearly midnight. Mac decides to go to Wednesday night Mass after leaving eight phone calls that all go to voicemail on Dennis’s phone. Frank invites Charlie to one of Duncan’s parties, but he can’t bring himself to go and Frank says he shouldn’t come if he’s going to be in a downer mood so he doesn’t.

“You know where he is, don’t you, Charlie?” Dee says when she’s about to leave, her voice sugary. “Dennis didn’t skip town, did he?” The worry in her voice is painfully present.

“He’ll be back,” Charlie says, but even he isn’t sure. What if this is some cruel joke? “Dennis-- Dennis knows what he’s doing.”

“Whatever,” Dee grabs her purse and takes an extra long time putting away the tip jar and locking up the cash register and staring at herself in the various liquor bottles, eyes flitting back to the door when she thinks Charlie isn’t looking. “Make sure you lock up, Charlie. And you better clean out the mini-fridge. There’s shit rotting in there.”

She frowns at her phone before the door slams shut behind her. Hours pass. Charlie sleeps fitfully in a booth. Watches a movie on TV and plays with the ant farm he and Mac keep hidden behind the jukebox. At eleven the front door cracks a sliver open and Charlie’s heart jumps but it turns out to be Cricket looking for handouts so he throws a box of maraschino cherries at his back and tells him to get the fuck out.

Finally, when Charlie’s head slumps to the cool polished wood of the bar and all he can smell is limes and disinfectant and the stickiness of booze in the air, Dennis comes in.

His cheeks are red, shocked almost, but the rest of his face is ghastly pale. His hands, twisting nervously like pale snakes in the crooks of his arms, are scrubbed raw and he’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday, which Charlie personally thinks is fine but knows is probably killing Dennis.

Killing. There’s that word again. Are they murderers? Is that what this is? They stare at each other, Dennis standing gaunt in the doorway, Charlie sitting cross-legged on the barstool until, finally:

“It’s all done.” Dennis says, his voice cold. “Mind passing me a glass? Actually, just pass me the bottle of Absolut-- it’s the one with the blue label, the A like a little tent.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. “Please, Charlie.”

Charlie hands him a can of Model Strength Adhesive instead. “Been doin’ this all day. 'S way better.”

“Nice,” Dennis says, inhaling, and for a moment Charlie thinks that this is going to be one of those things they move past. But then Dennis clambers down to the floor, pushes the barstools aside so that he can sit directly under the bar, and cries.

It’s fucked up. Dennis cries a lot; when he got laryngitis before a Rush concert and couldn’t go; that time they all went on Family Feud; whenever Mac is beating him in Monopoly or Go Fish, Dennis’s eyes begin to run and he starts sniffling at his cards until Mac lets him have Boardwalk or makes a shitty bet on purpose. But he never sobs like this, at least not in front of the gang.

This is the part of Dennis that only Charlie sees.

“Did you--” Charlie sighs, tries to find his words as he sits down next to Dennis. “Was it-- do you regret it?”

“No.” Dennis admits, frowning down at his hands, staring at his cuticles like they’re caked in blood instead of austerely clean. His eyes are all red now; mascara is tracked like tire marks down his cheeks. He looks beautiful, Charlie thinks, like the Waitress whenever she’s going out for a smoke in the middle of the night or the angel statues his Mom keeps on her nightstand table. All sort of raw and genuine and unashamed. “He deserved it.”

“Does that mean we have to go kill Klinsky now? Since you, uh, did that for me?”

“Charlie, that’s not even the same thing,” Dennis says, his voice getting all high and far away, “she-- she was, she liked me, _okay_?” His voice is cracking and he’s scrambling desperately for a facade he barely can hide under on a good day. All Charlie can do is be there, watch him fall apart. “Goddamnit, dude, I don’t care about her.”

“I know,” Charlie says, lets Dennis have the lie. “It’s like, what the fuck? Why are people, why do people do shit like that?” He’s slurring now, the words that he want to come out are blurring together the way they get when they’re on paper, but Dennis looks at him, teary eyed and so fucking scared nearly thirty years later, and Charlie knows he understands. "And it's like, I didn't even care about Uncle Jack, so why'd he'd make me cry?"

“Exactly,” Dennis says, his vowels colliding together. "He's a piece of shit." He sniffles for a moment, hides his face in his hands. “Was,” He corrects himself.

“‘M sorry,” Charlie says, and then he’s hugging Dennis and Dennis is getting tears all over the grey of Charlie’s sweater and he thinks that they could probably stay there forever. “Fuck, Dennis.”

Somehow, Dennis falls asleep with his head resting on Charlie’s lap. There’s scratches up Dennis’s arm and one on his cheek, and Charlie traces his fingers across them like they’re letters in a learn-to-read book. Dennis winces at that, mutters something in his sleep that sounds like _stay_ , so Charlie does.

He wakes up to Mac bent over the two of them.

“Man,” Mac is saying. “Dennis. Dude. Wake up, you guys gotta hear this.”

Charlie blinks himself awake, shakes his head and gently pats Dennis on the back until he groggily sits up. They both crawl out from under the bar as Mac turns on the piece of shit laptop that’s been soaked with beer more times than they both can count.

“You guys both slept here?” Mac says, his face contorted with suspicion. “Dennis, you didn’t even answer my calls, where were you, I called you _at least_ twenty times, I even texted you "EMERGENCY" in all capitals, dude--”

“I was-- I had a business thing.” Dennis says.

“‘N we did a shit ton of paint last night.” Charlie coughs. Truth be told, they barely did any, but it’s not like Mac was there. “Blackout.”

“Okay, well, whatever. I don’t wanna hear about your little gay shenanigans,” Mac says, clicking through news articles until he finds a bright red one with big black words. “I have big news.”

“You have big news?” Dee scoffs. Where the hell did she come from, Charlie thinks. She’s giving Dennis a look that’s half-knowing and half hurt, like she’s mad she wasn’t invited. “I’m the one who bought the laptop, so technically all news that comes from it is _my_ news, dickhead.”

“I’m the one who found it!” Mac yells, and even though Charlie is pretty sure he knows what the news is, he really wishes Mac wouldn’t get sidetracked. “I found it, you bitch. And it’s a piece of shit laptop. Whatever. Read it for Charlie.”

“You’re a piece of shit laptop,” Dee says, but she reads the article out loud anyways. “Just this Wednesday, one of New York’s leading prosecutors was found dead of suicide in his Manhattan office. Jack Kelly brought law and order where it was needed and… you get the picture.”

“Charlie,” Mac says, with a big fucking grin, “Uncle Jack’s dead!”

-

They all go back to Dee’s place after. It’s a day of silent celebration, Charlie thinks, even though everyone’s pretending to not give a shit. They shower and he borrows one of Dennis’s t-shirts and someone’s jeans and shaves using Dee’s razor, which kind of makes him want to die. But things are good otherwise.

Mac and Frank end up heading to the bar to try and see if they can scam Jack's estate for inheritance money, and Artemis invites Dee to this drag queen thing that to be honest weirds out Charlie, because why would you drag a queen? Dennis begrudgingly admits that he’s hungry, and so the two of them eat stale barbeque chips on Dee’s balcony, smoking cigarettes and throwing empty cans at pigeons and people on the street.

“We make a good team, Charlie,” Dennis says, leaning back in his camping chair. “I mean, you’re going to be loaded if you get that inheritance. We could really do something with ourselves.”

“Like what?” Charlie says. He’s sitting on the ground, always liked the comfortable cold of the floor. Now his back is resting against Dennis’s legs, and it-- all of this touching, all of these silent things they communicate-- is definitely new for them. Charlie likes it, though. Maybe it’s one of those things that you only can like after your creepy uncle dies and you start trying to fix what’s left of your broken brain.

“I don’t know. Maybe go on vacation to someplace warm. I always wanted to go to Texas. You could go to janitor school or something. Buy yourself a katana or whatever those things are in the windows of those game stores, I don’t know. Oh! We could get you one of those dyslexia things, because seriously, bro, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, we gotta get you reading…”

Charlie zones out listening to Dennis discuss their future: how they’ll buy out Jack’s law office and convert it into a laser-tag/bar/escape room combination, how Charlie could even start up a cat hotel, what with all the stray cats that follow him around (“People will _love_ it!”); they could have anything they wanted, Dennis says, knocking his knees against Charlie’s shoulders.

He’s still terrified. He’s pretty sure he still gets nightmares, and that they’re both a little more than broken. But he’s here. He’s with Dennis, and he’s safe, and maybe things will be okay.

They’ve got big big plans, at least. That, Charlie thinks, looking up at Dennis, watching him smile for the first time in months, has to count for something.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to leave a comment but I have to ask: no constructive criticism. I am really Going Through It right now and things have just been... rough as of late. If you have a moment, please send good things into the universe for Ao3 user easystreets. I promise I am sending them out for you.
> 
> <3
> 
> Edit: I thought I would give a Mental Health Update because I am obnoxious and a stereotypical self-obsessed writer. But I'm doing better. Trying to find a job-- whenever I apply, I hear Dennis's voice in my head: "the economy is in shambles, Dee!"-- and trying to be a good friend/person/human being even if my definition of that changes daily. Trying to work up the nerve to tell my parents I want to become an EMT instead of going to university. The theme for this year is trying, I think. Times are tough but so am I. I'm not religious-- I can't be, not with the world how it is-- but I do believe in the power of sending good things out into the universe, so please trust that I am sending them out to you. The world is full of beauty, even when everything sucks and even McDicks won't hire me and I'm awful, sometimes.


End file.
